Can a dividend yield be too high?
A high dividend yield can be appealing since you're getting more income per dollar invested, but a high yield isn't always a positive thing. It could mean that the company's stock price has been falling or dividend payments have been increasing at a higher rate than the company's earnings.
An abnormally high dividend yield could be a red flag. Dividend payout ratio: This is the dividend as a percentage of a company's earnings. If a company earns $1 per share in net income and pays a $0.50-per-share dividend, then the payout ratio is 50%.
If a company has a dividend payout ratio over 100% then that means that the company is paying out more to its shareholders than earnings coming in. This is typically not a good recipe for the company's financial health; it can be a sign that the dividend payment will be cut in the future.
Dividend yields over 4% should be carefully scrutinized; those over 10% tread firmly into risky territory. Among other things, a too-high dividend yield can indicate the payout is unsustainable, or that investors are selling the stock, driving down its share price and increasing the dividend yield as a result.
Dividend yield is a stock's annual dividend payments to shareholders expressed as a percentage of the stock's current price. This number tells you what you can expect in future income from a stock based on the price you could buy it for today, assuming the dividend remains unchanged.
For example, if a company issues a stock dividend of 5%, it will pay 0.05 shares for every share owned by a shareholder. The owner of 100 shares would get five additional shares.
In some cases, a high dividend yield can indicate a company in distress. The yield is high because the company's shares have fallen in response to financial troubles. And the high yield may not last for much longer. A company under financial stress could reduce or scrap its dividend in an effort to conserve cash.
In short, high dividend paying stocks can come with pitfalls. Dividend cuts will always undermine investor confidence, and can quickly push down a company's stock price.
Generally speaking, double-digit dividend yields are indeed too good to be true. They are often either being paid by unstable companies, or simply represent too much of a company's earnings to be sustainable. Of course, there are some exceptions.
There are a few reasons why percentage yield will never be 100%. This could be because other, unexpected reactions occur which don't produce the desired product, not all of the reactants are used in the reaction, or perhaps when the product was removed from the reaction vessel it was not all collected.
How to make $1,000 a month with dividends stock?
In a market that generates a 2% annual yield, you would need to invest $600,000 up front in order to reliably generate $12,000 per year (or $1,000 per month) in dividend payments.
To generate $5,000 per month in dividends, you would need a portfolio value of approximately $1 million invested in stocks with an average dividend yield of 5%. For example, Johnson & Johnson stock currently yields 2.7% annually. $1 million invested would generate about $27,000 per year or $2,250 per month.
Let's consider an investment in dividend stocks for $3,000 a month. If the average dividend yield of your portfolio is 4%, you'd need a substantial investment to generate $3,000 per month. To be precise, you'd need an investment of $900,000.
| Stock | Trailing annual dividend yield* |
|---|---|
| AT&T Inc. (T) | 6.3% |
| Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) | 6.3% |
| Healthpeak Properties Inc. (DOC) | 6.6% |
| Altria Group Inc. (MO) | 8.8% |
Basic Info. S&P 500 Dividend Yield is at 1.35%, compared to 1.47% last month and 1.66% last year. This is lower than the long term average of 1.84%.
The Risks to Dividends
Despite their storied histories, they cut their dividends. 9 In other words, dividends are not guaranteed and are subject to macroeconomic and company-specific risks. Another downside to dividend-paying stocks is that companies that pay dividends are not usually high-growth leaders.
Dividend-paying Stocks
Shares of public companies that split profits with shareholders by paying cash dividends yield between 2% and 6% a year. With that in mind, putting $250,000 into low-yielding dividend stocks or $83,333 into high-yielding shares will get your $500 a month.
Preferred stocks have a different holding period than common stocks and investors must hold preferred stocks for more than 90 days during a 181-day period that starts 90 days before the ex-dividend date. 2The holding period requirements are somewhat different for mutual funds.
The 45 day rule (sometimes called dividend stripping) requires shareholders to have held the shares 'at risk' for at least 45 days (plus the purchase day and sale day) in order to be eligible to claim franking credits in their tax returns.
| Ticker | Name | Dividend Safety |
|---|---|---|
| CCI | Crown Castle | Borderline Safe |
| VZ | Verizon | Safe |
| WPC | W. P. Carey | Safe |
| KMI | Kinder Morgan | Safe |
Why is high dividend yield bad?
Many investors look to dividend-paying stocks to generate income in addition to capital gains. A high dividend yield, however, may not always be a good sign, since the company is returning so much of its profits to investors (rather than growing the company.)
If you are looking to create wealth and have a longer time horizon, staying invested in growth will enable you to enjoy longer returns. But if you are looking for a more immediate return and steady cash flow, dividend investing could be the best choice for you.
“One mistake to avoid,” Cabacungan says, “is to buy a company's stock simply because it issues a high dividend.” If the company has leveraged excessive debt to fund the dividend, it could come at the expense of future profitability and hurt growth prospects.
In addition to providing consistent income, many dividend-paying stocks are in defensive sectors that can weather economic downturns with reduced volatility. Dividend-paying companies also have substantial amounts of cash, and therefore, are usually strong companies with good prospects for long-term performance.
While the dividend rate shows the absolute amount of dividend paid per share, the dividend yield factors in the stock's current price, offering a more insightful measure of the return on investment.
